The Mazeika Report October 22, 2008 go to "blog" link to http://mazeikabloginternationalnews.blogspot.com/ for archival reports for the months of September, August, July and June, 2008Pass this link on to other readers! Breaking stories.....your comments are welcome.... Place this "blog link" into your computer favorites for easy access.
=======================================================
Visit our interactive website and new featured listings....at http://www.ocrelocate.com/
Ocean to Mountains Real Estate for Southern California, Orange County, & San DiegoTony & Danute Mazeika....... 949 929-9051 direct
Celebrating 21 years and more than 500 successful real estate transactions... Don't miss the incredible market opportunities....... $$$$ for loans are available! Prices are at Year 2002 level... October home sales up significantly ...Positive signs of market recovery are here. Inventory is decreasing. You may qualify for a credit on closing costs and savings on escrow fees...Ask us how...... Don't delay..call us today! 949 929-9051
================================================================ Please support this unique blog.....Buy your ....Books, Dvds, and CDs on our special link access to Amazon.Com =====================================================================
Red Terror on the Amber Coast
Completion and Release of Documentary Film
“A Story that needs to be told!”
DVD copies: $20.00 each
You Tube trailor preview for Red Terror...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYET4bk0gvU
Film-maker Ken Gumbert and producer David O’Rourke have announced that their documentary film, Red Terror on the Amber Coast, has been completed and released for distribution, and has been accepted for broadcast on Rhode Island Public Television, at a time yet to be set. The film, in the works for five years, describes the Soviet occupation of the Baltics following the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939, the fifty year reign of terror the Soviets imposed on the once free and democratic republics, and the resistance to the illegal takeover. The film’s focus is principally on Lithuania. But the film-makers know that the story they present is the story of all three countries.
Almost by accident in 2001, the team of editor and writer David O’Rourke and documentary film-maker Ken Gumbert came upon photographs of prison and torture abandoned by the KGB when they fled their headquarters in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. Startled by the blunt cruelty of what they saw, they decided that the terrible story the pictures revealed had to be told.
In June of 2006 they were able to film interviews with a cross section of people, from President Adamkus and Vytautas Landsbergis to the wives of captured partizanai (freedom fighters) who had to fight just to survive while their husbands were in Soviet prisons. And with the full support of the National Genocide and Resistance Center in Vilnius and the Occupation Museum and Film Archives in Riga they have been able to illustrate the personal narratives with rare archival films and photographs.
At present the film-makers, both Dominican priests, are working with Lithuanian-American groups and others to promote the scheduling of the film on public television, in film festivals, and in local communities. They may be contacted directly by interested people. kgumbert@providence.edu dkorop@sbcglobal.net Tony@TonyMazeika.com
For more information, contact Tony & Danute Mazeika 949 929-9051
==========================================
Breaking news & commentary ....click on active links for multiple photos!
Comments from readers:
"Tony:
You really collect the best articles on Russian politics and economics. Your report is better than any of the single journals, because it gathers such good information from all of then - it is a real study in current Russian realities.
Dave O'Rourke"
=============================================
Welcome to the ACT! for America 2008 Candidate Voter Guide
ACT! for America emailed and mailed our 2008 issues questionnaire to over 1,000 candidates for President, U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. To see a copy of the questionnaire, click here.
Every effort was made to confirm that the candidates received the questionnaire and were aware of it. Return receipts for surveys both mailed and emailed have been retained. Hundreds and hundreds of phone calls were placed to the campaigns, asking them to return the questionnaires. We also sent an email to our members encouraging them to contact candidates who had not yet completed and returned the questionnaire.
Numerous candidates, including both Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain, did not respond to the questionnaire. However, ACT! for America has been able to provide research on how Senators Obama and McCain stand on the issue of terrorism, and there are some clear differences.
To review the research on Senators Obama and McCain please click here. Also, you can review both senators’ voting record on key national security votes going back to 2003 by clicking on our congressional scorecard. There you will also find the voting record of Vice President candidate Senator Joe Biden.
Some candidates emailed or mailed a response in lieu of filling out the questionnaire. Those responses are posted for those candidates. All other candidates who refused to respond in any way are identified with a “Refused to Respond” stamp.
Questionnaires that were returned to us have been posted to our website for your review. The completed questionnaires that you see are precisely what we received, including any comments the candidates wished to make for any of the questions.
If a particular candidate for U.S. Senate you are interested in is listed as “Refused to Respond”, and you would like to contact this candidate’s campaign to find out why, please click here for a list of candidates who did not respond and their contact information.
If a particular candidate for U.S. House of Representatives you are interested in is listed as “Refused to Respond”, and you would like to contact this candidate’s campaign to find out why, please click here for a list of candidates who did not respond and their contact information.
Nothing contained in this voter guide section should be construed as ACT! for America endorsing or not endorsing any candidate, or favoring or not favoring any candidate. The information provided is intended for informational and educational purposes only.
http://www.actforamerica.org/index.php/learn/voter-guide?tmpl=component&print=1&page=
===================================================
Geopolitical Diary: Falling Oil Prices Drag Down High Hopes
Stratfor Today »-->October 16, 2008
With the Dow dropping another 700 points and fears of recession setting in, the price of crude oil dropped to US$71 a barrel on Wednesday, its lowest point in more than 13 months.
This is a huge shift from July, when oil prices were more than double what they are now — US$147 a barrel. Back then, prominent leaders like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were swimming in petrodollars and grinning from ear to ear, planning their geopolitical agendas.
Chavez’s utmost priority is to secure his hold over the country, especially since more and more Venezuelans are growing disillusioned with his Bolivarian vision as inflation keeps climbing and food becomes scarcer. His way of holding onto power is to keep throwing money at his population, as well as his regional allies, through oil-funded social welfare programs and to buy plenty of arms from the Russians for the Chavistas protecting him and his support base. The Venezuelans announced today that they are betting on $60 per barrel oil for their 2009 budget. But with oil prices dropping this fast, Chavez is going to be in for a rude surprise.
Putin’s main priority is first to consolidate Kremlin control at home, then work to consolidate Russian influence in its formerly Soviet periphery. One of the ways to achieve the latter is to use handsome energy revenues to undermine Western influence in places like Latin America and the Middle East and to bully the Europeans, who are dependent on Russian energy, into complying with Russian demands. Though oil prices are dropping, Russia is still much better off since much of its energy comes from natural gas, for which Russia can set the price. But lower oil prices will still give the Russians pause in their actions moving forward.
Ahmadinejad’s main priority is to secure support for himself and the clerical regime at home by keeping the population happy with energy and food subsidies. Next on his list is the need to consolidate influence in Iraq and the wider region through a variety of proxies that need to be armed and paid on a regular basis. But with Iran’s exports falling, its energy industry in disrepair, gasoline imports draining the economy and now oil revenues falling, the country is spiraling further and further into economic turmoil.
A number of geopolitical agendas will need to be revised as oil prices continue falling. But we need to also keep in mind that this drop in oil prices is likely just the beginning.
An economic recession has just barely begun in the United States, and has yet to hit the wider world. The recession in Europe is also just starting, and since Europe’s monumental economic ailments are entrenched in the banking sector, it will be at least another several months before the Europeans can start to recover. Moreover, the slowdown of exports from Asian markets is only just now starting to come to light. The recovery of the Asian states is first dependent on the Western consumer base recovering. In short, what we’re looking at is a protracted decrease in demand lasting from months to years across the globe.
To put that into perspective, in 1997-1998 during the Asian financial crisis, the countries hit by recession were Japan, South Korea and the Southeast Asian countries. Though that economic crisis was more localized, it still resulted in a 10 percent drop in global demand and a three-fourths drop in global crude prices to around $8 dollars a barrel.
Compare that situation to the present day, when the United States, China, all of Europe as well as much as the developing world is getting hit with recession. Oil prices have dropped more than 50 percent in a little more than two months, yet the coming drop in global demand has barely even cut into the price of oil. And to put that into perspective, this drop in price is happening in spite of the “geopolitical heat” already factored into the market price of oil, including threats from Nigerian militants, Israeli war threats against Iran and Russia browbeating the Caucasus. The oil markets are boiling down to the fundamentals, and unfortunately for the big oil-producing states of the world, those fundamentals are acting bearish.
http://www.stratfor.com/
The Geopolitics of Russia: Permanent Struggle
Stratfor Today » October 15, 2008 1847 GMT
Editor’s Note: This is the fourth in a series of monographs by Stratfor founder George Friedman on the geopolitics of countries that are currently critical in world affairs.
By George Friedman
Full report via link: http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20081014_geopolitics_russia_permanent_struggle
==========================================================
THE WASHINGTON POST
Oct. 20, 2008
Russia Unromanticized
John R. Bolton
Former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz argued recently on this site that the United States should neither be "isolating" Russia nor drifting toward "confrontation." The Post's Masha Lipman urged us to avoid "Cold War preconceptions and illusions." Unfortunately, these distinguished commentators are aiming at straw men: No serious observer thinks we face a new Cold War or that isolating Russia because of its increasing foreign adventurism is a real solution. U.S. opposition to Russia's recent behavior should not rest on a desire to "punish" Russia but on the critical need to brace Moscow before its behavior becomes even more unacceptable.
Russia has been growing increasingly belligerent for some time. Its invasion of Georgia is only the most recent and vicious indicator of its return not to the Cold War but to a thuggish, indeed czarist, approach to its neighbors. Vladimir Putin gave early warning in 2005, when he called the breakup of the Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century." In the same speech, Putin lamented that "tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory." He may now be acting to reverse that "catastrophe," as further demonstrated by Moscow's embrace of Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and other efforts to interfere in that country's elections. Prudence based on history requires us to assess Russia's invasion of Georgia as more than an aberration until proven otherwise.
Russia has repeatedly demonstrated its capacity to threaten American interests: providing cover to Iran's nuclear weapons program by enthusiastically neutering sanctions resolutions at the U.N. Security Council and trying to market reactors to Tehran; selling high-end conventional weapons to Iran, Syria and other undesirables; using its oil and natural gas assets to intimidate Europe; making overtures to OPEC; and cozying up to Venezuela through joint Caribbean naval maneuvers, weapons sales and even agreeing to construct nuclear reactors.
Take the controversy over locating U.S. missile defense assets in Poland and the Czech Republic. We fully informed Russia before withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that we would create a limited (but geographically national) missile defense system to protect against the handfuls of missiles that might be launched by states such as North Korea or Iran. As anyone can tell from looking at a globe, anti-missile sites in Europe wouldn't defend against the missile trajectories of a Russian strike on America. (That's why the Distant Early Warning Line was in Alaska and Canada, not Europe.) Russia's threats against Poland are aimed at intimidating Western Europe, an all-too-easy objective these days. We have real interests at stake, such as a route to the Caspian Basin's oil and gas assets that does not traverse Russia or Iran. If Moscow's marching through Georgia goes unopposed, marching will look more attractive elsewhere, starting with Ukraine, which has a large ethnic Russian population "beyond the fringes" of Moscow's control. "Legitimate security interests" do not justify invading and dismembering bordering countries.
A rational Russia policy has to escape the persistent romanticism of Moscow in recent administrations and the desire of some Europeans to close their eyes and hope things will work out. Too many Europeans believe they have passed beyond history and beyond external threats unless they themselves are "provocative." Last spring in Bucharest, that mentality led Germany and others to reject U.S. suggestions to put Georgia and Ukraine formally on a path to NATO membership. Moscow clearly read that rejection as a sign of weakness.
Ultimately, what most risks "provoking" Moscow is not Western resolve but Western weakness. This is where the real weight of history lies. Accordingly, attitude adjustment in Moscow first requires attitude adjustment in NATO capitals, and quickly, before Moscow's swaggering leaders draw the wrong lessons from their recent successes.
First, NATO must reverse the Bucharest summit mistake immediately. This is achievable before Inauguration Day on Jan. 20. Admitting Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into NATO has stabilized a possible zone of confrontation in the Baltics, and moving to bring in Ukraine and Georgia would eliminate a dangerous vacuum in the Black Sea region. Second, we should scale up rapidly in military cooperation with current and aspiring NATO members in Central and Eastern Europe to make it clear that more Russian adventurism is highly inadvisable. Hopefully, other NATO countries will join with us, but we should act bilaterally if need be. Third, we should proceed fully with missile defense plans, on which we have repeatedly offered Russia full involvement and cooperation, to protect us all from rogue-state threats.
Such an approach will not endanger Western security but enhance it. And if Russia takes offense, better to know that now than later, when the stakes for all concerned may be much higher.
================================================================
Europe's Message to Moscow
By Dan Hamilton
The European Union has entered diplomatic no-man's-land by deploying more than 200 monitors to areas of Georgia next to the breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, replacing Russian forces that invaded Georgia in August. The EU's Georgian deployment is a test of its ability to manage relations with a resurgent Russia, and to develop a more credible approach to the volatile "in-between" lands that stretch along EU borders from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
The EU faces some tough challenges. Moscow has not only refused to make good on its commitment to remove its forces from Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it has actually recognized the two Georgian provinces as independent countries, given many of their citizens Russian passports, and deployed a sizable contingent of its own forces. EU efforts to initiate mediation talks in the conflict fell apart in Geneva Wednesday due to disagreement between Georgia and Russia over participation of the two breakaway regions.
In the short term, the EU is well-advised to maintain its position as "honest broker" in the conflict. This allowed it to mediate and engineer the current ceasefire, and despite this week's setback offers an opportunity to work with all sides to tackle the unresolved issues of status for the provinces and security for people across the area.
In the longer term, however, the EU must review its approach to Russia and the region as a whole.
The message to Moscow is straightforward. If Russia continues to bully its neighbors and cling to outmoded spheres of influence, the international community will hold Russia accountable. If it uses its energy wealth to invest in its people, build a more sustainable economy grounded in the rule of law, tackle its truly stunning health and demographic challenges, and build better relations with its European neighbors, the EU and the U.S. stand as willing partners.
The EU's message to smaller neighbors demands more from Brussels. The EU has an interest in preventing violence along its eastern borders. It needs to address wider Europe's remaining conflicts, most of which are labeled "frozen" but are really festering sores that have dragged down small young democracies and blocked their economic development. The EU also has an interest in projecting stability eastward so that instability does not flow westward. It needs to discourage its neighbors from irresponsible behavior and to engage with them in ways that reduce the region's vulnerability to Russian pressure and forge closer links to the EU itself.
EU enlargement has been the bloc's greatest foreign policy achievement. EU leaders remain reluctant, however, to acknowledge that a turbulent Europe without walls and barriers requires vigorous efforts to extend the EU's brand of democratic stability even further eastward. Now that EU forces have been forced to deploy to the eastern shore of the Black Sea, the magnitude of wider Europe's challenge - and the need for a more dynamic response -- may become clear.
Dan Hamilton, director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins SAIS, is the host of Next Europe.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/sais/nexteurope/2008/10/europes_message_to_moscow.html
=============================================================
Mullen Offers Reassurance to Baltic Republics
By Jim GaramoneAmerican Forces Press Service
RIGA, Latvia, Oct. 21, 2008 – Following a meeting this morning in Helsinki, Finland, with his Russian counterpart, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff traveled here to discuss defense issues with Latvian officials.
Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, accompanied by Latvian Brig. Gen. Juris Maklakovs, the chief of defense, discussed defense and NATO issues with Latvian President Vladis Zatlers, Foreign Minister Maris Riekstins and Defense Minister Vinets Veldre.The Baltic republics – all members of NATO – are nervous following Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia all want more precise NATO defense plans in the wake of the Russian action in the Caucasus. Mullen said his trip is designed to assuage some of the nations’ concerns.“One of the reasons I am here is to send a very visible message of reassurance,” the chairman said during a news conference with Zatlers. Alliance members are having discussions on the Russian actions and all nations remain committed to staying unified on the Georgia invasion, the chairman said. “It’s been pretty clear across the board that NATO was not accepting in any way, shape or form what Russia has done in Georgia,” he said. “All of us are concerned by the recent invasion into Georgia of Russia,” Mullen said. “In my past experience in NATO, I’ve always tried to understand the views of the Baltic [republics] because of the history and how they view what has happened. Those are part of the conversations we have had today. I think it is very important that … NATO recognizes what the alliance means and the responsibilities and obligations that go with it.”NATO fighters guard the Baltic nations’ airspace and perform the peacetime air defense and air policing function. U.S. Air Force F-15 aircraft based at Lakenheath, England, currently have that mission as part of NATO.The mission over the Baltic republics is an important one, Mullen said. The alliance had a recent exercise of that mission, he noted. All nations realize its importance to the alliance and to the Baltic nations, he said, though he would not go into specifics about air police plans or specific scenarios used to train the NATO flyers.“It is a NATO mission that many nations have stepped up to in the past and will continue, certainly through 2011,” Mullen said. The chairman thanked Latvia for its support in the Balkans and for sending personnel to Afghanistan.
Biographies:Navy Adm. Mike Mullen
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=51591
===============================================
Russia, Iran and Qatar discuss gas cartel
The Associated Press
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
TEHRAN, Iran: Iran, Russia and Qatar discussed the formation of an OPEC-style cartel among some of the largest natural gas producing nations on Tuesday, a prospect that has unnerved energy-importing nations in Europe and the United States.
The meeting appeared to be the first serious talks about the creation of such a cartel since Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, first raised the idea in January 2007.
The prospect has raised concern in the United States and around the 27-nation European Union, which depends on Russia for nearly half of its natural gas imports. Moscow, which controls many of the European pipelines delivering gas from Russia and Central Asia, already has a tight hold on supplies.
Russia has been accused of using energy as a weapon, in particular in its disputes with neighboring Ukraine. European Union leaders have said they would stand against any Russian effort to create a gas cartel, fearing energy prices — and Russia's political clout — could rise further as a result.
Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said Tuesday that the three countries with the largest natural gas reserves will "seriously pursue the formation of an organization of gas exporting countries."
Nozari spoke on state TV after a meeting with his Qatari counterpart, Abdulla Bin Hamad al-Attiya, and the head of Russia's state-controlled energy company Gazprom, Alexei Miller.
He said the three parties decided to discuss the cartel further at the next meeting of their foreign ministers.
Many experts say a natural gas cartel that resembles the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries group would be tough to achieve.
Unlike oil, which is traded on an exchange that constantly updates the market price based on supply and demand, most gas is sold under tight contracts that allow buyers to lock in prices for up to 25 years. As a result, a cartel would likely have little influence.
The formation of a gas exchange also would be difficult because most natural gas is delivered via pipelines and is not as easily shipped around the world to different buyers as oil. Pipeline infrastructure also requires significant investment that often makes long-term contracts necessary.
Former Russian President Vladimir Putin and Qatar's emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, announced in April 2007 they would explore the creation of a cartel to represent the interests of producer countries in controlling the global market.
Russia and Qatar are two of the world's largest producers of natural gas, and tiny Qatar sits atop the world's single largest gas field.
A leaked confidential study by NATO economic experts in 2006 had warned that Russia may be seeking to build a gas cartel including Algeria, Qatar, Libya, the countries of Central Asia and perhaps Iran, and cautioned that an OPEC-like near monopoly would strengthen Moscow's leverage over Europe.
Because of growing demand and lessening supplies, the United States also has increasingly relied on natural gas imports in recent years.
Weeks after the Russian-Qatari announcement, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman spoke out against the formation of a cartel. Appearing at an energy conference in Houston in February 2007, he said initiatives that seek to control the flow of energy supplies and circumvent the role of the market to set prices "are contrary to the long-term interests of both producers and consumers."
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=17130808
=================================================================
Ground is shifting under empires of Russian oligarchs
By Andrew E. Kramer
Saturday, October 18, 2008
MOSCOW: Are the Russian oligarchs going bust?
In the global financial crisis, perhaps no community of the affluent has fallen as hard, or as fast, as the brash Kremlin-connected insiders whose wealth was tied up in the overlapping bubbles of the Russian stock market, commodity prices and easy credit.
Full report via link: http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=17047280
=======================================
Russian ruble crisis costs the Kremlin billions
By NATALIYA VASILYEVA and DOUGLAS BIRCH – 1 day ago
MOSCOW (AP) — Only a few months ago, the Kremlin was talking about pricing its oil in rubles and making the ruble a regional reserve currency, giving it a status closer to that of the euro and the dollar.
But that was before Russian tanks rolled into Georgia, the Russian stock market crashed and the price of oil fell by half.
The ruble has declined steadily since the Aug. 7 start of the five-day war with Georgia, losing some 10 percent to 12 percent of its value against the dollar. Without intervention by the central bank, which began in early September, it might have fallen further, faster.
Anton Struchenevsky, an economist at Troika Dialog investment bank, said Monday the Central Bank was spending $600 million a day to buy rubles and support the currency's exchange rate, for a total of $20 billion in less than two months. Other experts put the cost of defending the ruble as high as $50 billion.
While Russia has more than half a trillion dollars in foreign exchange reserves, Struchenevsky said: "This cannot last forever."
Some analysts think the Central Bank is trying to engineer a soft landing for the ruble — letting exchange rates fall to strengthen Russian industry by raising the costs of competitors' imported goods. The aim would be to let the ruble slide gradually to avoid causing panic.
Andrei Illarionov, a former Kremlin adviser and now a government critic, told reporters Monday that "the Central Bank, to safeguard itself, made a decision to start a devaluation, a soft devaluation of the ruble."
Allowing the ruble to fall too quickly would contradict the Kremlin's official line, which is that the Russian economy remains healthy, vibrant and largely insulated from the impact of any global recession. The currency's strength and stability had until recently been a proud symbol of the country's rise from the ashes of its 1998 economic crisis.
Governments can either set an official exchange rate, sometimes based on another currency, or let their currencies float — let the international currency trading market set the rates.
Russia's Central Bank pegs the ruble to a so-called "basket" of the dollar and the euro, allowing it to float only within a narrow range. The aim is to avoid the economic shock of sudden swings in the currency's value.
A decision to abandon the peg and float the ruble "would doom the banking sector," said Nataliya Orlova, chief economist at Alfa Bank. "There is a nervous mood in the air, but if the ruble loses state support, there will be panic. People would be withdrawing rubles from their deposits and converting them into dollars."
Yegor Gaidar, an economist and former prime minister, last week praised the government's efforts to support the ruble. "This is a smart decision," he said. "We absolutely do not need panic on the currency market."
Until this summer, the ruble had been gaining for several years on the back of higher prices for Russian commodities, especially oil and gas. The ruble strengthened to 23.14 against the dollar in July, its highest level in 9 years.
But the currency's fortunes have reversed dramatically in the past three months. It hit a 20-month low Friday, trading at 26.4 rubles to the dollar. On Monday, it ticked up a hair to 26.3.
Meanwhile, some of Moscow's sidewalk currency exchanges over the weekend were selling dollars for more than 28 rubles — the result, apparently, of whispers that the Kremlin was about to let the ruble float against international currencies.
The Central Bank reassured markets it would continue to support the Russian currency, and introduced measures Monday to limit traders who used currency swaps to profit from the ruble's decline.
Oil prices also rose modestly Monday, further strengthening the ruble.
Some analysts say Russia's economy remains relatively healthy and the currency should show more resilience, but many Russians remember the 1998 currency collapse.
"The ruble has been steadily growing in the past few years on capital inflows, but a large part of people and businesses still have no faith in the ruble," said Evgeny Nadorshin, chief economist at Trust Investment Bank.
A rapid devaluation would not just undermine faith in the currency; it could cause political problems for the Kremlin as well. Many Russian regard the 1990s, a crippling period of poverty and turmoil, as a time of political and economic humiliation.
But Russia was in a much weaker economic position 10 years ago, and no one expects a replay.
Even if the government decided to let the ruble float, Struchenevsky said, there would be no repeat of 1998, when the value of the ruble dropped fourfold and inflation surged to 80 percent.
Besides helping domestic manufacturers, he added, it would allow the government to adopt more flexible economic policies.
Associated Press writers Lynn Berry and Steve Gutterman contributed to this report.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gc9QQ79DpD3JRodHliUAZxZuy6_wD93UDJH00
=======================================================
MOLDOVA AZI > POLITICS > NEWS
http://www.azi.md/news?ID=51597
October 20 2008
European political and religious leaders will back Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia
Nearly 40 political leaders - representatives of the European People's Party - and senior officials from the Orthodox clergy met for an "inter-culture dialog" organized by the Party in Iasi (Romania) last weekend, where they decided to underpin Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia in their European integration efforts.
Adevarul newspaper of Romania wrote that the political and religious leaders decided to create a partnership to the east of the European Union that will include Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia. The European leaders promised to support a message on these states' joining the European Union, the paper wrote.
The said political and religious leaders presume that these three FSU states are members of the European family of nations, and the leaders are positively assessing the countries' efforts aimed at integration into the European Union.
INFOTAG
http://www.azi.md/print/51597/En
====================================================
Sources: US To Waive Visa Rules For 7 Countries
(Butler, AP) Friday, October 17, 2008APBy Desmond ButlerThe Bush administration plans to remove visa requirements for the citizens of seven allied countries, congressional aides said Thursday.President Bush will announce Friday that Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and South Korea will be added to the U.S. visa waiver program as early as next month, the aides told The Associated Press.The White House would not confirm the list but said Bush is to speak Friday on the visa waiver program. The congressional aides spoke on condition of anonymity because the president will announce the decision.The administration has sought to reward close allies with visa-free travel but has met resistance from some lawmakers who say the visa waiver program could make it easier for terrorists to slip into the United States.The program currently includes 27 countries, including most of Western Europe. Exclusion has been a sore point among some new NATO allies that have supported U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of those countries, including Poland, did not make Friday's list because they could not meet admission requirements.Negotiations with Greece, which has long sought to join other Western European countries in the program, have faltered, prompting complaints from the Athens government and Greek-American groups that it is being punished because of unrelated political disagreements with Washington over the entry of neighboring Macedonia into NATO.Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said he was concerned the administration waived some criteria for admission so the seven countries could be approved before Bush leaves office."I am dismayed the administration has decided to expand the Visa Waiver Program before implementing security measures required by law, a move that could very well jeopardize the security of the United States," Lieberman, a supporter of the program, said Thursday in an e-mail.Congress last year enacted a law to expand the program while requiring that the government implement a system under which visitors from non-visa countries would have to register online with U.S. authorities before their departures and provide some personal information. Lieberman contends that program will not be in place when the new countries join.
====================================================
NATO fighters practice air defense over Baltic skies
21/10/2008 12:31 TALLINN, October 21 (RIA Novosti) - NATO fighters started on Tuesday exercises aimed at policing the airspace over the Baltic countries as part of the Baltic air-policing mission, the Estonian defense ministry said.
The Baltic air-policing mission is a NATO air defense Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) in order to guard the airspace over the three Baltic States - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
The current exercise involves up to 15 NATO aircraft from the Baltic States, the U.S., Poland and Denmark. Overall supervision of the exercise will be carried out from a NATO Combined Air Operations Centre in Germany.
Estonian Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo said earlier that the exercises would become a routine part of the Baltic air-policing mission.
The Baltic States have a poorly equipped air force and air defense capability, which cannot provide sufficient protection of the airspace and perform the so called air policing function - prevention of airspace violations and landing by aircraft that have gone off course either on purpose or unintentionally.
Since March 2004, when the Baltic States joined NATO, alliance nations have policed the airspace over the region on a three-month rotation basis from Lithuania's First Air Base in Zokniai, near the northern city of Siauliai.
At present this mission is carried out by the U.S. Air Force. The Americans deploy 100 personnel and four F-15C fighters at a Lithuanian airbase in Zokniai.
The current agreement on the protection of Baltic airspace by NATO fighters runs until 2011, but the Baltic States are insisting it be extended until 2018.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20081021/117852508.html
===================================================
U.S. pilots take on Lithuania sky duty
By Charlie Reed, Stars and StripesEuropean edition, Saturday, October 4, 2008
England-based fighter pilots deployed to Lithuania this week to police the skies on behalf of NATO.
Four F-15s from the 493rd Fighter Squadron at RAF Lakenheath along with 130 airmen took over from the German air force for a three-month rotation in the Baltic States. The U.S. is one of 13 NATO countries committed to the air policing mission in the region, which also includes Latvia and Estonia.
Pilots are running training sorties every day, although "a majority of the mission is just sitting alert," said Capt. George Downs, a project officer from the 493rd.
The fighter jets will provide air defense for the region, once governed by the former Soviet Union.
This is only the second time the U.S. has taken part in the Baltics mission since its inception in 2004, the year the countries joined NATO and the European Union.
"I think the biggest thing we’ll take away is increased solidarity and confidence in our NATO allies and an understanding that we’re all in this together," Downs said.
The U.S. troops are operating out of Lithuania’s Siauliai International Airport near the northern city of Siauliai. Lithuania was the first Soviet republic to declare its independence in 1990 though Russian troops did not withdraw until 1993, according to the CIA World Factbook.
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=65039&archive=true
=================================================
Source: http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews+articleid_2679293.html Lithuania As Nato Member Should Fear Confrontation With Russia - U.S. Diplomat
Friday, October 03, 2008 7:57 PM (Source: Daily News Bulletin; Moscow - English) MOSCOW. Oct 3 (Interfax) - U.S. Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried thinks that Lithuania should aspire to establish good relations with Russia at any cost. It is not Lithuania that started confrontation with Russia; it is Russia that created problems by intruding a neighboring country, Fried said on the air of the Lithuanian National TV within the framework of this visit to Vilnius. Lithuania is a NATO member, and NATO is a serious organization, and Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which provides for collective security, is a serious obligation, the diplomat said. Asked if the Baltic states have a defense plan in case they are attacked, Fried said that this is a standard of NATO to be ready to fulfill Article 5 of the Treaty: there is nothing new, dramatic or scandalous about this. NATO is now authorized to do what it should do: to revise how the Alliance is ready to fulfill its obligations under Article 5. Russia has privileged interests in some regions, Fried told a meeting of the Enhanced Partnership in Northern Europe (e-PINE) in Vilnius on Thursday commenting on a statement by Russian authorities. Russia should assess it forces, which would allow it to do something constructive in the world rather than to intimidate others, the U.S. diplomat said. Russia's statement about rights and spheres of influence is an anachronism inherent to the 20th century, he said, adding that Russia has taken this view and we need take this into consideration. The fact is that we do not recognize Russia's rights to a sphere of influence, and this could create difficulties for Russia, Fried said.
======================================================================
October 21, 2008
Few in Baltic States Voice Preferences in U.S. Election
Latvians, Lithuanians divided over whether election makes a difference
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
USA
Democrats
Election 2008
Elections
Favorability
Leadership
Republicans
Americas
Former USSR
by Ian T. Brown
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Citizens in the Baltic state of Latvia slightly favor Democratic Sen. Barack Obama over Republican Sen. John McCain in the U.S. presidential election, though a majority do not voice a preference. In Estonia and Lithuania, respondents are split between the two candidates, but even more respondents do not have a preference.
These Gallup Polls were conducted during key moments of the U.S. election season. In Estonia and Lithuania, Gallup surveyed respondents in June and July, shortly after Sen. Hillary Clinton conceded the Democratic nomination to Democratic rival Obama. In Latvia, Gallup polled in July and August, concluding days before the Democratic and Republican National Conventions began.
Access to media is likely not a serious issue for Baltic residents. On the Gallup Communications Index, which measures citizens' connectedness to electronic communications such as telephone and television, Estonia's score of 69 is average for Europe, and Latvia's and Lithuania's scores of 64 and 60, respectively, are not that much lower.
While large majorities in each country do not express a preference for whom they would like to be the next U.S. president, more respondents have an opinion about whether the outcome of the U.S. presidential election makes a difference to their country. Lithuanians and Latvians are more likely than Estonians to say the election makes a difference to their country, but overall are divided as to whether it makes a difference. In Estonia, a majority of respondents (61%) say the election outcome does not make a difference.
In an editorial published by The Baltic Times in July, Joseph Gerzen argues that the presidential election does in fact have significance for Lithuanians, largely because of President George W. Bush's selection of Lithuania as an alternative host country for the missile defense shield. Gerzen maintains that if McCain were elected president, he would continue to push for such partnership, possibly at the expense of Lithuania's relations with Russia. Nonetheless, Gallup finds Lithuanian respondents split equally between McCain and Obama. Gerzen's argument may not mirror how Lithuanians' view their interests with respect to the election.
As a point of comparison to another former Soviet state, Georgian respondents voice a preference for John McCain and a majority do think the election outcome will make a difference to their country. While Georgia needs continued U.S. support for its bid to join NATO, Baltic nations already have well-established economic and political ties to the West, possibly explaining why the election resonances less with Baltic nations' citizens. Energy ties with Russia and the possibility of a new pipeline through the Baltic Sea likely demand more of their attention.
Survey Methods
Results are based on face-to-face interviews with 601 adults in Estonia, aged 15 and older, conducted in June-July 2008; 513 adults in Latvia, aged 15 and older, conducted in July-August 2008; and 506 adults in Lithuania, aged 15 and older, conducted in June 2008. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is between ±4 and ±5 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/111190/Few-Baltic-States-Voice-Preferences-US-Election.aspx?version=print
======================================================
Baltic markets hold steady
Posted on : 2008-10-21 Author : DPA News Category : Business
Riga - The three Baltic stock exchanges continue to trade in a steady range this week, maintaining the trend started at the end of last week. The NASDAQ OMX Tallinn exchange closed down 0.75 per cent Tuesday. Vilnius was down 0.56 per cent, while Riga's exchange, the smallest of the three, rose 5.94 per cent.
That was enough to cause the Baltic Benchmark Index (BBI) which includes data from all three exchanges, to record a modest rise, closing up 0.37 per cent at 332.19.
Despite the general flatness in the markets, there were one or two big fluctuations among individual stocks.
Lithuanian furniture maker Klaipedos Baldai recovered its losses of last week with a big 15 per cent rise in its share price. Latvian fur farmer Grobina headed in the opposite direction with an 11 per cent loss.
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/printstory.php?news=237967
=========================================
Fuel in Lithuania costs less than in other Baltic countries
Danuta Pavilenene, BC, Vilnius, 20.10.2008.
The decreased prices for crude oil affected the prices for oil products in the global market. Last week, a liter of A-95 petrol cost 3.45 litas in Lithuania, 3.58 litas in Latvia, and 3.50 litas in Estonia.
The price for a liter of diesel fuel stood at 3.73 litas in Latvia, 3.79 litas in Estonia and 3.62 litas in Lithuania.
According to Daiva Joksiene, head of the marketing department of Lietuva Statoil, the prices for crude oil dropped because of the continuing crisis in the world"s finance markets, the decreased consumption of oil and its products in the U.S. and other countries, as well as the restored level of the U.S. reserve, which was imbalanced after the month of hurricanes.
http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/transport/?doc=6306&ins_print
============================================
Lithuanian budget to go for debate on Oct. 28
Oct 20, 2008TBT Staff in cooperation with BNS
VILNIUS - A draft Lithuanian national budget for 2009 is set to go to Parliament for debate in 2009.
"The morning session on Tuesday next week will be devoted entirely to the presentation of the draft budget and accompanying legal amendments," Ceslovas Jursenas, the speaker of the Seimas (Lithuania's parliament), told lawmakers on Monday.
The budget, which will include a nearly 3 percent deficit, has received harsh from both local and EU officials.
"No way [it should be signed]," EU Commissioner for Financial Programming and Budget Dalia Grybauskaite told the Baltic News Service after a meeting with President Valdas Adamkus. "I gained solid experience during the critical situation in 1999 and 2000 when all public expenditures were trimmed. By more than 10 percent, and not just 5 percent. Such reserves do exist. The authorities should buy less limousines and should rather think and balance the appetites of individual departments with the economic and fiscal policy, financial resources. They should start there instead of doing harm to people," Grybauskaite said.
The government last Friday sent to the parliament a draft 2009 national budget which envisages that next year's expenditures will exceed revenues by 2.64 billion litas (0.87 billion euros) and targets a fiscal deficit of almost 3 percent of GDP.
As to the draft, the revenues of the national budget (the central government plus municipal budgets), including the EU funds, will total 30.199 billion litas in 2009, up 2.7 percent from the revenue amount envisaged for 2008. Budget appropriations are seen growing by 2.43 billion litas, to 32.838 billion litas.
The Finance Ministry projects that the country's economy will grow by 1.5 percent next year.
http://www.baltictimes.com/print_article/21582/
=
No comments:
Post a Comment